


Keep This Scene Inside Your Head

by Alcoholic_kangaroo



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Child Abuse, F/M, Kidnapping, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 17:04:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14675559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alcoholic_kangaroo/pseuds/Alcoholic_kangaroo
Summary: A re-imagining of the first couple seasons of Stranger Things. What if none of the happenings had been supernatural and Will Byers had just been kidnapped?





	Keep This Scene Inside Your Head

**Author's Note:**

> I know you all are used to cuddle smut from me at this point, that's not what this is. This isn't supposed to be hot or cute.

They locate Will Byers below the Hawkins National Laboratory three and a half weeks after his disappearance. He is alive. He is undernourished and covered in sores, welts, and bruises. But he is alive.

Will Byers was housed in a secret room, behind a false wall, that leads into a hallway of identical rooms with cots and cement walls. He is not the only one they find behind the false wall. Each room contains a child. But he is the only local child. The only child who lived within only miles of the notorious stop of the trafficking ring.

Everyone had always assumed the Laboratory was federally run and funded. The employees there never corrected anybody on this matter. It wasn't federally run nor funded. It was a small medical lab that specialized in pharmaceutical development. A lucrative business, but a difficult one to get off the ground. In their early years, before they had any real accomplishments under their belts, the owners of the lab sought funding from non-conventional sources.

Records indicate that Hawkins National Laboratory had entered a business partnership in the winter of 1972 with a small business that called itself Plush Toys Inc. As of summer 1985, there has been no progress in tracking down further contacts or locations from those involved in the trafficking ring. According to laboratory personnel, Plush Toys Inc. ran under the slogan of “the less you know, the better.”

Will Byers is the only child to return from that lab in the fall of 1983 without a tattoo imprinted on his forearm.

 

* * *

 

Barb Holland stumbles through the overgrown forest, lost, out of breath. She should have stayed on the road. It was a long walk but it was even and well defined and brightly lit.

But no, she, in her utter stupidity, had decided it would be quicker to take a shortcut through the woods, a straight beeline to the car.

And was that a wolf howl?

No, just somebody's dog, she tells herself. Wolves don't bark, right? Do they? Aren't dogs just stupid wolves?

Every time she leaves rustle far away, a mouse or an owl or a raccoon searching for its next meal, she freezes and listens.

Why did she do this? At the best of times the woods aren't the safest place to be in the middle of the night and there's that kid missing. Surely whoever the sort is that wants a pre-teen boy wouldn't want a late-teen girl?

She hears the thumping of footsteps and knows instantly it is not the sound of a coyote or a deer. They do not run with such thundering strides. Only humans run like that.

Barb spins around, fearing for the worst. Fearing that she will spot the outline of a lumbering monster or a man with a knife.

It's not a man. At least, not yet. It's a boy. And he's breathing heavily like he's been running for a very long time.

He throws his arms around her waist. He's small, his head only comes up to her collarbone.

“Please help me, they're after me!”

It's dark out but she's heard this boy jabber on at the Wheeler's dinner table enough times to recognize Will Byers when she hears him.

“Will?”

“Barb?”

“What are you doing out here?” she blurts out. She hugs him tight to her. He's shaking and clammy. “Everybody's been looking for you!”

“I, I was in a room,” he breathes. “Underground. My dad, they gave him money, and he-”

“There he is!”

Barb doesn't know where they come from. She just knows she's suddenly surrounded by men with guns and angry voices. She pulls Will closer to her, trying to shield him from them with her arms.

They grab him and pull him away. Another pair of arms wretch her arms behind her back and force her down onto her knees. Her shoulders scream with pain but her mouth does not. Will is crying and starts to scream. She hears the slap of skin on skin as they hit him. The flash of a flashlight on her face blinds her,

“Shit,” the voice behind the flashlight curses. “What are we going to do with this one?”

“Kill her?” a second voice asks, voice cold and unaffected.

“Well, obviously,” the first voice responds. “But we're smack dab in the middle of a suburb, we can't drag her body out of here.”

“If she agrees to walk out calmly we can sell her to Tony's people?” a third voice suggests from her other side.

“They don't want them as ugly as her,” a fourth voice, this time a woman, says. “Better just to kill her. She'd probably scream on the way out anyway.”

“What about the quarry?” the second voice says. “It worked for that kid this summer.”

“But he wasn't a local,” the first one points out. “If a local goes missing they'll dredge the quarry, guaranteed. It's better if they find the body easily before they uncover more of them.”

“There's a wolf pack in this area, isn't there?” the woman asks.

“Wolves don't use bullets.”

“These rednecks won't be able to tell the difference between a knife wound and a wolf bite. Especially after they tear her throat out.”

 

* * *

 

Will slowly becomes aware that he is being followed. The light start far away and he moves to the side to give the car room to pass. But the car, the van, is moving much too slowly for an empty night road. He wonders if they're deer jackers, scouring the scrub along the pavement for the animals.

The vehicle slows nearly to a stop behind him, bathing him in the light. It barely rolls, leaving ten, twelve feet between his rear tire and the bumper. The light sends Will's shadow ahead of himself, long and gangly looking. Like some shadow monster riding a bike in front of him.

Maybe they're afraid to pass him. It's dark on this road, maybe they don't want to hit him. He swerves completely off the road to the gravel next to it. The sound of dirt and small rocks rattle beneath his wheel. The car does not pass.

He's being followed. Will realizes that quickly. If they're looking for deer then they're doing a bad job at it.

It might be the highschoolers. There's a few that live down the street from him, not too far from here, that have already beaten him up on more than one occasion. They say it's good for him, that a fag like him needs to get used to “another man's fist kisses.” Every beating is worse than the one before. Last time, they had threatened with a knife they pressed against his throat. There had only been a small nick afterwards to indicate its presence and his mother had yelled at him that he was too young to try shaving.

Is it the highschoolers? Are they finally planning on killing him? When they find him alone on a dark night, on a deserted road?

He peddles harder. The engine behind him revs and the van speeds up. The space between them lessens. He peddles harder but he knows its useless. He's not going to outrun a car. He pulls into a clearing of trees on the side, just a dip off center from the road, and jumps off his bike. He leaves it laying on the ground and turns to the road to confront whoever it is.

“Well?” he yells out angrily, “I'm here! What do you want?”

“Will?” a familiar voice calls back. One that he's used to hearing shouting at his mother or berating his older brother for being “weird.”

“Dad?” Will asks, confused. His own voice sounds small to himself in the darkness of the night.

“Yeah, kiddo, it's me,” Lonnie confirms. He opens the van's door a fraction and rests his leg on the frame. “Wasn't sure if that was you. What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”

What's Will doing out here in the middle of the night? What is Lonnie doing out here? He doesn't even live anywhere near here. He hasn't visited them in months. Will approaches the van, confused.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, ignoring his father's question.

“Your mom called me to come get you,” Lonnie says, his voice going solemn and subdued. “Your brother got in a car accident.”

“Jonathan?” Will squeaks, his chest tightening with panic.”Is Jonathan okay?”

“He's fine, buddy,” Lonnie calls back to him with a chuckle. “But they're keeping him overnight in case of a concussion. Get in, your mom's waiting for us at the hospital.”

“O, okay. Let me get my bike.”

“Leave it,” his father commands. The dominance of his voice cuts through Will, flooding him with memories of his earlier years. Of being yelled at, humiliated, hit by this man.

Will's afraid somebody will steal his bike but he doesn't want to anger his father so he walks around the idling vehicle and climbs up into the passenger seat.

They never make it to the hospital.

 

* * *

 

“I think she'll approve,” an accented speaker says over Will's head. They sound like the old videos of President Kennedy that Will had to watch in social studies last year. A Boston accent, he thinks. “He's adorable but I'll need to bring her the pictures before we confirm anything. Has he been house-trained yet?”

“No,” the gray-haired man, the one who walks up and down the hallways at night, replies. “He hasn't even been here forty-eight hours. I just knew when I saw him that he was her type though. I wanted to give her first dibs, seeing as how much we appreciate her business.”

“It's probably for the best,” the accent speaks again. “You know how fussy she is with her boys. She hates when they're trained to somebody else's preference. Make sure this one is quieter than the last one. She wasn't happy with him. But don't cut his tongue out, he'll need it.”

 

* * *

 

“He's been having these delusions,” Joyce explains to Dr. Owens. She doesn't look at the doctor. She's standing in front of the glass, a one-way mirror, watching Will as he taps nervously on the table in front of him. Will doesn't know he's being observed.

The room really is made for little kids, not pre-teens like Will, and he seems uncomfortable sitting in the too-small chair surrounded by blocks and stuffed animals. The only thing he ever shows any interest in is the books.

“It's not uncommon for children to deny certain parts of an experience,” the doctor assures her. “Especially after severe sexual abuse.”

“It's not that,” Joyce denies. She rubs tiredly at her temple, a headache already setting it. The lights are hurting her eyes. “It was that at first. But now he's saying this really crazy stuff. He claims a monster took him, and he acts like I should already know that.”

“A monster?” Dr. Owens asks, skeptical.

Joyce nods. “He, uh, he drew me a picture of it. Do, do you want to see it?”

“Yes, please,” the doctor requests politely.

She digs through her purse. It's full of gum and tissues and bottles of pills with both hers and Will's names on them. The paper is folded twice over on dark gray paper. Dr. Owens takes it from her and unfolds it. There's a tall, spindly looking creature without a face. Instead of a humanoid head there's something resembling a flower. Or if you wanted to go the O'Keefe route, like a tooth ridden vagina.

“Interesting. This is what he says took him?”

“He calls it a demogorgon.”

“Interesting,” the doctor repeats, seeming to lose himself in his own head for a moment. He traces his fingers over the vulva-like appendages. “Is your son interested in Greek mythology, perhaps?”

“I, I don't know. Why does it matter?”

“The gorgons were a group of snakelike monsters in Greek mythology,” he explains. He hands the paper back to Joyce and removes a small notepad from his pocket. She watches him jot something down on the pad. “They were a trio of sisters. Medusa is one of the better known of the classical monsters.”

 

* * *

 

Hopper ignores the protest of the laboratory staff, not even giving them the courtesy to tell them to shut their fucking mouths. He was already in this building before, he had already scoured every inch for Will Byers, but that was before that girl had came forward. Before she told him about the hidden door.

The men are in shock when he walks directly to the false wall and pulls it open. One of them goes to protest and he fires a bullet beside his head.

“Shut your fucking mouth you sick piece of shit.”

The other officers restrain the personnel and Hopper makes his way down the stairs. It's stuffy below the ground, and prison-like. There's a series of shut metal doors. This is a place you lock away serial killers and rapists, not children.

“Which one has Will Byers in it,” he demands to the single gray-haired guard in the hallway. His gun is trained on him and the man promptly pisses his pants.

“He's, he's not here,” the man stutters.

“Where is he.”

“In the tr, training room.”

The training room is one more floor down. Even deeper into the underground. He opens the door with one quick shove of his shoulder and the door slams back against the wall.

The boy is between two men, on his knees, and his mouth is full and-

Hopper immediately puts a bullet through the head of the man being serviced..

 

* * *

 

“You don't want me to get you help?” Mike asks, confused.

Eleven shakes her head.

“But my parents will take care of you,” he assures her. “They're nice, I promise. They'll let you eat whatever you want and Mom will buy you a prettier dress and Dad will take us to the toy store if we beg him hard enough.”

Eleven shakes her head again.

She doesn't trust adults. Adults do stuff to her. Bad stuff. Adults make her hurt down there. It doesn't matter if they're old or young, fat or skinny, tall or short, male or female. You do not trust adults.

She doesn't want to go back there. She doesn't want to be cold again, or to be put in the Bad Place for disobeying Papa. She likes the sunlight. She likes the trees and grass and the sweet food Mike gives her.

She can be quiet. She's good at being quiet. She's used to sitting quietly for long stretches of time.

Mike promises to keep her secret. He sneaks downstairs again later that day and brings her toys to play with. He shows her pictures of people. He has a pretty sister. That's bad. Pretty ones never do well.

Eleven recognizes one of the boys in another picture. It was her job to bring the new ones food because they already know not to trust the adults. He was number 442. She wonders if he got away too.

When she points to him, Mike asks if she knows where he is. She shakes her head. She doesn't know. He might still be underground but if they caught him trying to escape he probably went to the Bad Place.

 

* * *

 

“Ms. Grace needs him fully trained to pleasure a woman,” the gray-haired man explains to the other man, a new, younger man. Maybe a boy even. This man-boy is tall but gangly and his face is acne ridden. “She doesn't like them to come inexperienced and pays extra for thorough training. It's funny how our clients are. A lot of them are willing to pay extra if they are untouched. She wouldn't even allow an amateur in her bed.”

“So none of our men are needed for this one?”

“No,” the gray-haired man shakes his head. “We will. She likes to share her pets with her lovers. He needs to perform well with both, but his training needs to be especially thorough for pleasuring women. She likes sitting on their faces.”

“Okay, so what do I need to do?”

The gray-haired man claps the man-boy on the shoulder. “Just stand outside and make sure nothing bad happens. Ruby will be in charge.”

“Do I need to get anything ready for them? Dad says we need to introduce some of them to toys?”

“They'll bring their own equipment. Just make sure the boy is well-bathed.”

“What about a haircut? He looks a bit scraggly.”

“Fuck no,” the gray-haired man laughs, shoving at the man-boy playfully. “Ms. Grace likes them pretty. If you fuck up the boy she'll have your head. She'll have her people groom him how she likes. Just make sure he's clean for the training.”

“Ms. Grace sounds like she's terrifying.”

“She's extremely rich and even more boy hungry. She goes through them like underwear. This one will be back with us within a year, hear my word, but we'll get a lot less for him after she's through with him. Believe me, this little thing is already on his way to the clearance bin.”

 

* * *

 

“Can't we get a court order to make her abort it?” Jonathan demands, his fingers digging into his mother's arms.

“That's not how it works!” she shouts back. “They can't force a woman to have an abortion! That's not how the law works, Jonathan!”

Jonathan releases Joyce from his grip, already feeling guilty for the bruises he probably left on his mother's skin. He knows she's as helpless in this situation as he is. But God, why can't things just go right for once. Don't they all deserve a fucking break?

“Why does she even want it?” he seethes angrily. Joyce moves towards the table and sits back down in her usual chair. “The damn thing will be in college by the time she's out of prison.”

“She's truly a champion for the children,” Joyce replies sourly. She reaches for a half-finished beer on the table and brings it to her lips, adding on before taking a sip, “She probably just wants to torment us.”

“What is she going to do with it?” Jonathan asks. He's disgusted with this entire situation. The idea of where this baby is coming from, how it came to be, makes him feel like vomiting. “She can't raise a baby in prison. Does she have family to take it?”

“She plans on giving it up for adoption, supposedly,” Joyce sighs. She sets down the beer. There's two more empty cans on the table that weren't there this morning.

Fuming, Jonathan yanks open the fridge door and grabs a fourth can from the six-pack. Joyce raises an eyebrow but doesn't object to the action.

“We can intervene, right?” he asks, pulling out the chair on the other side of the table. He slumps down in it, long legs sprawled out in front of him. “If the father doesn't want to give it away he can object, right?”

“Do you think Will's ready to be a father, Jonathan?” she watches him crack open the Sam Adams. “He's twelve. Hell, I'm not ready to be a grandmother.”

“You could, you could just be a mother?” Jonathan suggests slowly. “Nobody would have to know.” He lifts his beer in the air and Joyce copies his motion. The cans clank together. “Congratulations to my little brother. Should we throw him a fucking baby shower?”

 

* * *

 

The Bad Place lives up to its name. The normal cells were far from pleasant, with their stark white walls and hard floors. But there had been a cot and a toilet and a stuffed bear and they had let Will have crayons and paper. It had felt good to hold the stuffed bear, afterwards, when he was sore and scared and alone.

The Bad Place has no stuffed bear. Or a cot or crayons. All Will has is a blanket on the floor and a pot to piss and shit in. It makes the room smell bad and they only empty it when it becomes full.

It gets very cold in the Bad Place. They don't give him baths anymore. They spray him down with a hose and give him a different blanket to lie on. It's also very dark in the Bad Place. There's one bulb to see by in the shape of a unicorn. The nightlight is blue and and set far up on the wall, higher than Will could ever reach. Too far to electrocute himself with the socket.

He could probably use his blanket on it if he wished. Swing it up and lasso the light, pull it out of the wall and send it crashing to the floor. But then it would be black in the small, cold room.

Will eats and sleeps and shits under the glowing blue light. He rubs his thumb along the inside of his wrist, drawing pictures on his skin, and wonders if there would be metal in the nightlight. Or he could use the broken glass.

Unless the pieces were too small. Would it shatter on impact? Would he have to walk blindly with bare feet on splintered glass shards?

Will huddles into the corner of the room, his head resting on his arms, and stares at the unicorn. He sings softly to himself to fill the silence.

 

* * *

 

The corpse is too decomposed for them to show the Byers the body. Joyce begs the coroner to let her see it, says she needs to see him one last time, but he tells her “No mother should see their child in this condition.”

“It's not Will,” Mike insists. “He wouldn't have been out at the quarry on his own.”

“It's not Will,” Dustin echoes the sentiment. “It's only been a week and a half. His body wouldn't be that decomposed already. Especially with this weather. The cold would preserve him.”

“It's the chemicals,” Nancy explains to her little brother and his friends. She feels so bad for him. How much must it hurt to lose your best friend? It makes her want to go find Barb and give her a hug and tell her how important she is to her. She holds Mike as he cries. “Some pharmaceutical company has been dumping chemicals in the water. They said it ate through him.”

“It's not Will,” Mike still sobs. She presses his face into her chest and rests her cheek on his head, wishing she could take this pain away from her little brother. His tears soak through her shirt. She spreads her arms out to envelope them all when Dustin and Lucas join the embrace.

 

* * *

 

Mrs. Wheeler catches Eleven in the bath. She didn't know Mrs. Wheeler was home. She heard the car leave awhile ago. But the woman doesn't seen surprised when she opens the door and find a girl scrubbing herself pink in the water. There's blood on her forearm where she has tried to scratch a black mark off her skin.

Eleven never feels clean. That's why she had cut off all her hair. Whenever she closes her eyes she remembers Papa winding his fingers in the curls and telling her how pretty she is.

Mike calls her pretty too. She doesn't like when he calls her pretty. Mike isn't like Papa.

Mrs. Wheeler calls Hopper over. He asks her where she came from but Eleven doesn't answer. Her nose is bleeding. She gets nosebleeds a lot. Papa said it was caused by stress. She wipes at it with her arm. It covers the black mark on her wrist and makes her feel calmer.

They leave her alone and disappear into the kitchen. They're whispering loudly. Eleven slips out the front door unnoticed.

 

* * *

 

“He's claiming he's throwing up slugs,” Joyce says, her voice thick. She's trying to hold back tears. “He says it's a parasite from the monster in the Upside Down.”

“It sounds like he's getting worse.”

“He is,” she confirms. She wipes at her face lightly, then repeats the motion harshly. “He's losing weight. He says it's because the slugs are using his energy.”

“Is he actually vomiting or is that entire action fake?”

“He's vomiting. He always flushes it, but I can hear him in the bathroom. He says the slugs go down the drain before I can see them.”

“It might be best to prescribe some anti-psychotics, but I'd like to do a few brain scans on him first.”

 

* * *

 

“She's where?” Joyce asks in disbelief, her back turned to Hopper. He hears the distinct pouring of hot coffee into a large mug.

“A group home,” Hopper sighs. He takes off his hat and runs his fingers through his thinning hair. “I wouldn't have even known but one of the social service people saw my name on the papers and mentioned it at the auction. Called it a tragedy.”

“I can't believe her aunt would do that to her,” Joyce replies. She turns back to him and holds the mug out for him, already pale with cream and sugar. “That poor child. Sold by her own mother for drug money when she's barely a toddler and now just thrown out to the wolves.”

“There's, uh, there's another one of them in the same home,” Hopper adds. “From the ring. She has a tattoo on her arm. Number eight. We found her before the raid though. She's older. Has spent some time in juvie for arson. I'm afraid she'll be a bad influence on Jane.”

“She helped us find Will,” Joyce says, sadly shaking her head. “I wish I could do something for her. But this house is so crowded as it is. And the baby will be here in just a few more weeks...I'd have no where to put her.”

“You're already going through so much with Will and the newborn,” Hopper assures her. “Don't feel like you need to fix everyone else's problems. Concentrate on Will. Has he acknowledged the upcoming birth yet?”

Joyce shakes her head. She's brought it up to him, several times, in the past month. He freezes up and has visions, claims he flashes back over into the Upside Down. The visions are becoming more frequent. She doesn't know what she's going to do when there's a baby in the house.

“Hopper, I wasn't expecting you,” a new voice speaks in the doorway. Bob Newby walks into the kitchen, a brown bag in his hand. He kisses Joyce on the cheek and sets the bag on the counter. Hopper watches him begin to unpack a pile of hamburgers and fries. “I didn't bring enough for-”

“Don't worry about it,” Hopper half smiles at the other man. “I was just giving Joyce an update on Jane, I won't be staying.”

“Ah, Jane,” Bob nods. He's already grabbed a fry from the bag and bites it in two, chewing. “I've heard good things about that girl. She did so much for Will. I'd love to meet her someday.”

“She's been put in a group home,” Hopper explains. “Her aunt complained about her behavior, said she threw things and screamed a lot. I don't think she was ready to deal with a child that has gone through as much as Jane has. Poor thing.”

“Oh,” Bob frowns. He takes the seat next to Joyce and Hopper observes how their hands just automatically reach for each other. Their fingers entwine on top of the table. Below it, he can tell Bob's hand is on Joyce's knee. “Maybe they'll find her some good foster parents.”

“Nobody wants children that old,” Hopper responds, shaking his head sadly. “Nobody wants to adopt a child with emotional problem like hers.”

“Everyone prefers babies,” Joyce adds. “They're clean slates. Easier to pretend they're yours.”

“This one will be mine,” Bob stresses, squeezing Joyce's hand. He leans over and kisses her on the cheek. “I'll be there from the moment she's born. I'll be the only father she'll ever know.” He looks towards Hopper then. “What about you Hopper? Never wanted to be a father?”

Hopper notices how Joyce tightens up at the question. So she's never told Bob about Sarah. He's not sure if he should be pleased that she respected his privacy or upset that she never found it worth mentioning to her fiancee.

“It'd be nice to have a child around the house,” Hopper concedes. “But I'm a lonely old bachelor. I couldn't take care of a little kid.”

“But thirteen isn't that young,” Joyce prods him, and he smiles, because Joyce knows what he's thinking and that makes him feel content. “They don't need constant supervision at that age. Especially if they have friends who's parents are willing to keep an eye on them when you're not around.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Eleven to thirteen is a pretty good age range for my situation, I reckon. Maybe I need to take a trip down to the child services office tomorrow before work.”

 

* * *

 

He's strapped down on the bed, restraints on his ankles and wrist. He can't move. He can't breathe. There are thighs on each side of his head and he can't even turn away. He's trapped.

The women, this Ruby, talks sweetly to him. She coos at him like he's a beloved lapdog. She doesn't hit him. But she tells what the men to do.

The tasers shoot pain throughout his entire body. It only took two hits for him to stop resisting but he's crying. It's making it worse. There's snot running down over his lips and he can't seem to get enough air. His nose is clogged and she keeps blocking his mouth.

“Just make me cum and I'll let you go,” she coos again, sweetly. She strokes his hair and cheeks and throat lovingly. She runs her thumb up and down over his pulse point. “I'll bring you some ice cream, too. Come on baby boy, just do what mommy tells you.”

This woman, this Ruby, is most certainly not his mother. His mother never shoved his face between her legs and forced him to lick that area between them. It tastes weird and smells disgusting. He doesn't like how her wetness feels on his nose and cheeks. He wants to wipe off his lips.

They use the tasers a third time, when he begs her to let him stop. He can't breathe. He can't breathe. He's going to suffocate. He can't breathe.

 

* * *

 

“He had a seizure!” Joyce screams, throwing one of Dr. Owens' throw pillows directly at his face. “Seizures! He's only thirteen years old, what are you doing to him?”

“I told you akathisia is perfectly normal in patients who-”

“This wasn't a fucking tremor, he had a seizure! He was on the ground, shaking and foaming at the mouth like he had rabies!”

“It's nothing to worry about, seizures are-”

“No!” Joyce bites out, wagging her finger in the doctor's face. “You're a fucking quack. I don't bring my boy here so you can make him worse than he already is! Give me Will's records, I'm finding him a real doctor.”

 

* * *

 

“Mom?” Jonathan asks soft. She isn't moving. She's sitting there as still as a statue, just staring straight ahead at the lights she hung up all over the living room. Christmas lights. She put them up after Will's funeral, explaining through tears to her oldest, her only, son that Will loved Christmas lights and if he was here they would start decorating for Christmas so they might as well do it anyway.

Christmas was more than a month away, but Jonathan went ahead and helped her decorate anyway. Anything that he could do to make her feel better.

“Mom? Are you okay?”

“It, it wasn't him,” she says softly. “It wasn't Will.”

“What are you talking about?”

She turns suddenly, her eyes shining with some inner joy. Jonathan jumps, not expecting the movement. She looks possessed.

“It wasn't Will,” she repeats. “They, they just came back with the results of the dental records. It was some boy from Detroit. Will might still be alive.”

Blood rushes to Jonathan's head. He feels dizzy suddenly, not quite getting what she's saying. They had a funeral, of course Will isn't alive. They buried him. He just put more flowers on his stone this afternoon. He stumbles, falling to his knees at his mother's feet.

Joyce reaches for him and he falls into her lap, his head pressing into her stomach. She folds him up in his arms, and now she's crying, and he's crying, and he grabs her around the waist and sobs into her lap.

“We can't give up yet,” she says through her tears. “If your brother is still out there we'll find him. We just need to have hope.”

 

* * *

 

Will is crying through the cloth in his mouth. He struggles to sit up, but the ropes around his ankles make the action awkward and the man presses him down with a foot on his lower back.

“Come on,” Lonnie argues. “You gotta give me more than that. This isn't some little hood from Detroit. This is my own son.”

“I don't care where they come from,” the man with the mustache says with a shrug. “I don't care if you're selling us your own clone. That's my price, take it or leave.”

“Well, it's not like I can't not take it,” Lonnie spits out. “What am I gonna do? Just release him and let him go back to his mother's? He'll talk.”

“Well, you should have tried to haggle a price before kidnapping him, shouldn't you?” Mustache taunts. “How about this. I'll let you have a free round with any of the ones we currently have in the facility, except for the ones we're preserving for their buyers.”

“I'm not a kiddy fucker,” Lonnie replies, spitting angrily. “I'm about to lose my house. Look at him, he's already a queer. He'll make some guy a great pet. He has beautiful teeth too. Take out the gag and you'll see. He's super cute. You'll get a great price on him.”

Mustache looks towards Will, then nods at the man holding him down. The man grabs him by the rope around his wrists and yanks him up onto his knees. Will's eyes widen when the knife appears before his face.

They cut off his shirt first, up through the short sleeves so they don't have to undo the knots around his wrist. Then they remove the gag. Will sobs, his lips feel raw at the corners.

Mustache approaches him and probes at his mouth with a fat finger, pulling at his sore lips. When he tries to turn away the guard slaps him against the face.

“Not so hard,” Mustache admonishes. “Don't leave bruises. He is very cute.”

“So we can cut a deal?”

Mustache, like some movie villain, strokes his namesake.

“Tell you what, let's play a game. I know one buyer in particular who may be interested in your son. Take my current deal and if this buyer wants the boy I'll give you an extra fifty percent. If she says no, then you're stuck with the offer.”

Lonnie considers it. He doesn't know who else he could load the boy off on and he doesn't particularly want to murder his own son. That'd be messy and, well, wrong. Plus he's no good to him dead.

“Alright,” Lonnie agrees, accepting the man's hand to shake. “But you gotta keep your word about that buyer.”

“Of course,” Mustache smiles.

 

* * *

 

Will hears the sound of the door unlocking through his own quiet singing. He fades off, eyebrows furrowing, thinking he must have made it up in his mind.

Swinging his legs over the side of the cot, he approaches the door quietly. He pushes against the door and peaks out. The hallway is brightly lit. It's dark in his room, it has been for a long time so it must be night, so why is his door open?

Is this a test?

There are no guards in the hallway. He takes one step out and looks both ways. Another child, a girl younger than himself, is looking out her own door. She looks at him and he holds up a finger to silence her. Then he puts out his hand.

They go together. Down the hallway, around a bend, down another hallway, around another bend. These doors all have windows and are dark inside. This isn't a place where they keep the kids. Will starts trying to open the doors but they're all locked.

The girl is the one who finds the room with the phone in it. She doesn't know her own phone number, she's very young but she already has the tattoo on her arm. Number 307. Will calls home.

The connection is bad. Will is unsure if it has something to do with being so deep underground. Maybe there's a storm outside.

His mother answers. Will's throat constricts. Suddenly he can't talk, can't breathe.

“Who is this?” his mom demands to know. She sounds like she's been crying. “Will? Honey, is that you?”

“Mom?” his voice cracks and he starts to cry.

“Will? Where are you? Will?”

There are voices outside the door. The little girl runs behind the desk and hides behind it. Will slides low onto the floor, the phone still in his hand, and tries to breathe quietly.

“Will?” his mother's voice sounds hysterical. “Are you there? Will? Talk to me!”

He can't stand up or they'll hear him. But they might also hear his mom's voice screaming over the receiver. He yanks at the line to unplug it from the wall. His mother's voice cuts to a stop.

They find them less than a minute later. The little girl is hauled off in one pair of arms and Will in another. He screams and cries and beats at the man's face.

“That's it,” the gray-haired man grumbles after he deals Will a blow to the side of his head. “You're going in detention. Say goodbye to the light.”

 

* * *

 

 

“El! We were so worried!” Mike exclaims, throwing his arms around her. “We were so, so worried. Why did you run away?”

“They found me,” she says. “I didn't want to go back.”

“It was my mother,” Mike assures her. He releases her and steps back, smiling. “It was just my mother. She wouldn't make you go back to the Bad Place.”

Eleven shakes her head. She doesn't believe him. She has been walking around the forest alone for two days and she feels cold and hungry. She just wants to go back to Mike's house and eat Eggos and watch television. She doesn't like being out here in the cold. She doesn't like being out alone in the dark. She loves being free.

Will isn't free.

Mike keeps asking her about Will. She kept quiet out of fear but she doesn't like making Mike sad. She wants to made him happy. If he's happy he might bring her more Eggos. If he's happy he might stop telling her she's pretty.

“I found the rock,” she explains.

“The rock?”

“From the night I ran away,” she says. She thinks she told him about the rock. It's a big rock with a small tree growing directly on top of it. She knew if she found the rock she could find her way back to the building. “I can show you where Will was. But I don't know if he's still there.”

 

* * *

 

“You're pregnant?” Will asks. He looks towards Bob and smiles shyly. “I'm really going to have a little sister?”

“Yeah, kiddo, you're going to be a big brother,” Bob confirms.

Will looks at his mother's stomach, and is confused. He swears it was flat yesterday but now it's large and swollen. His mother is due next week and they kept it from him this long.

But he always wanted a younger sibling. He knew he'd make a great big brother, just like Jonathan. He learned from the best.

“Can I go tell Mike? I'll be home before dinner.”

“That's fine,” Joyce smiles affectionately at him. He grins at them and runs outside to his bike.

Joyce and Bob's smiles fade. Joyce reaches underneath her shirt and pulls the cushion out from under her shirt.

“Do you really think this is for the best?”

“If it helps him deal with it then I think we should just go with it,” Bob says. “He'll come to terms with it someday but for now, if he wants to believe in all this Dungeons and Dragons monster stuff than why should we stop him?”

“I already told the Wheelers to go along with the story,” she admits. “I'll have to speak to the others but, what about when it comes back to him, someday? What then? Will he be angry and think we lied to him?”

“We'll deal with that when it comes,” Bob says. “We need to make sure the baby has a stable home for now. And don't forget a certain wedding coming up in the spring...”

“I still need to get Lonnie to sign the fucking divorce papers,” Joyce fumes. She sighs. “I need to head over there anyway, to finish up the adoption papers with her. Do you want to come?”


End file.
